This invention relates to a test strip supply apparatus and especially relates to a test strip supply apparatus used when analyzing a sample from a living body, such as urine or blood by using a test strip impregnated with a reagent.
In a medical examination of the hospital, a test strip is often used easily to inspect several analytical items contained in an urine sample and a blood sample. The several test strips are clung with the reaction layer which impregnated the reagent on an elongate sheet-like strip which consists of plastic etc.
As a general automatic analyzer which is automated to handle such a test strip, U.S. Pat. No. 4,876,204 may be cited as an example of such apparatus. In such prior art, it is shown that an arm having a test strip gripper moves between the sample table and the photometric mechanism, and the test strip which develops color is optically measured. The sample table holds the sample container into which the test strip is dipped. The test strip supply mechanism supplies the test strips one by one to a start position for a test strip position for a test strip transportation with the arm. The test strip supply mechanism shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,876,204 is provided with a bottom that can slide to the hopper which the test strip is cast into, and has means for supplying the test strip by movement of the bottom outside of the hopper.
In the test strip supply apparatus mentioned in U.S. Pat. No. 4,876,204, the test strip can easily be caught between a wall and a bottom of the hopper, thus decreasing reliability. In order to overcome. Such a problem, the inventors of the present invention have invented a test strip supply apparatus which has a test strip accommodation container moving to and from on a supporting table. Such example is mentioned in U.S. Pat. No. 5,378,630.
By using the apparatus mentioned in U.S. Pat. No. 5,378,630, it becomes possible to take out the test strip to the outside one by one automatically. However, this case doesn't lead to a technology to be able to supply the test strip smoothly in this example. In particular, in this example, a through groove for taking out the test strip is formed on a wall of the accommodation container, but when the test strip is dropped from the accommodation container into an accept department on a passage stage through the through groove, more than three pieces of the test strips may get into in the through groove in succession resulting in trouble. After having let one of the test strips conveyed to an outside take-out position usually, as the test strip leading to it is one or zero, it is returned into the accommodation container, and rotational motion of the accommodation container is again provided. But, those all may not come back in the accommodation container in the case that more than two pieces of the test strip remained. Therefore, the rotational motion of the accommodation container is obstructed. Further, a test strip supply apparatus which has a pushing members to push the test strips in the rotatable container into an guide member is shown in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 6-148201(1994).